Staying At The Forefront Of Your Market With A Virtual Assistant

Most business owners understand and appreciate the importance of online marketing to promote their goods and services. Interestingly enough, instead of focusing on marketing, many business owners would rather focus on product and service creation, building new and exciting partnerships, business networking and employee relations. So, if you’d rather focus on these aspects of your business too, why not consider hiring a virtual assistant with tried, tested and proven online marketing experience.

Reach Out to New and Existing Customers

A virtual assistant with online marketing experience can help you effectively reach out to new and existing customers. As customer shopping preferences continue to change, your online marketing campaign needs to adapt as well. Essentially, not only do you have to reach customers locally, nationally and in many cases, internationally, you also have to adapt your online content to suit a variety of platforms (for example, any given customer may shop on their personal computer, tablet or smartphone).

Furthermore, your virtual assistant can develop online marketing campaigns that resonate with specific groups of people. Most virtual assistants will be able to create website content – or source it for you, find the best places online to advertise, develop online partnerships with other businesses that complement your products and services, create email marketing campaigns and even update content on various platforms, as necessary. So depending on the amount of content your business needs to reach customers effectively, in most cases your VA will be able to hire and manage freelance writers, graphic and web designers to help you pull it all together.

Providing the Ultimate Customer Experience

These days, customers want to fully understand what your brand is all about. If your brand matches their dreams, goals and passions, they will buy from you. More importantly, these customers will continue to buy from you if you can deliver an outstanding customer experience. An experienced VA can provide this experience by creating a website that clearly and fully demonstrates the value of your brand. In addition, your VA will be able to choose suitable advertising avenues (paid advertising, email marketing, apps, newsletters, etc.) to complement your website content.

Because of the many options online marketing provides to businesses trying to attract and keep customers, your VA needs to be able to select the right ones for your business. For example, if you own a retail store or restaurant, your VA should concentrate online marketing efforts locally. So, before launching any online marketing campaign, make sure your VA has a thorough understanding of your customers, and market as a whole for that matter. This step will help immensely when creating content and also help determine which online marketing strategies will be the most successful.

Attract New Customers while Maintaining Loyal Customers

Marketing to new customers is oftentimes different from marketing to loyal customers. Your virtual assistant may have to create two or more online marketing campaigns to keep a variety of customer types happy. This is to be expected as the sales funnel for new customers may be more complex than the sales funnel for existing customers. This is because new customers need more convincing to give your product or service a try. Loyal customers already know the value your business provides, so selling a new or updated product or service is usually a great deal more straightforward.

As you can see, hiring an experienced VA to handle your online marketing campaigns has many benefits indeed. However, the most important benefit to you is the extra time you’ll have to focus on other areas of your business, and personal life too!

Francis, I disagree to finding a VA being difficult. If one knows what skills the VA needs to have for YOUR business and being as detailed in what you are seeking then finding that ‘right’ VA shouldn’t be difficult – it may take time, for which I recommend, not rushing to find one. Once you find that ‘right’ Va she/he will stick around longer.

Yes to everything you wrote in your post. I had a VA and it was one of the best decisions I made in my business at the time. It did free me up to focus on other money making task in my business. Plus it got me away from things that were not my strengths. Getting a VA again is high on my list. It does pay off if you hire the right one.

Renee YAY! That is great to hear. VA’s really do free up time! Consider this – to find the ‘right’ one – make sure you have listed out what skills you need this person to have. Been as detailed in what YOU Need and VA’s should already be skilled therefore no training should be required.

Stephanie, great that you took advantage of one for vacation – perfect time. Consider this – you do not need to have a VA full-time. I have many clients on an as needed basis. Small projects to large ones! One time to maybe full time. VA’s can be flexible and I’ve been doing this for so long that I love being flexible!

I have hired virtual assistant a few times, but it was not very successful. I think I was doing something wrong, maybe delegating in a wrong way. Will try this again and again though (until I master it).

Andrea, sorry about you not finding that perfect VA. It happens, I hear it all the time. Keep a few things in mind as well….. make sure you know what skills or knowledge the VA you need has them. Take the time to ‘interview’ them, look at their website, ask for references and reach out to those references. Take your time and do this ahead of you needing one in place. Good Luck!